Newsletter August 2012

Having finished our fries and chicken strips (no lectures please), Tania and I sat facing each other across the small table, now covered with our Bibles and notebooks. As I leaned forward to hear her in the crowded food court of the shopping plaza, she asked me how God was working in our lives through our current trial with the apartment we purchased in January. My response led to a sweet time of deeper sharing than we normally experience—a joy to add to the many others that God has graced us with in the last three months. The Bitter : For those of you who are not aware of the problem, we discovered in May that the apartment we had prayed for, searched for, and finally purchased in January, has a mortgage on it that was taken out by the construction company before they sold the apartment to us. Unfortunately, the builders did not use the money we paid them to pay off the mortgage. We found out about the mortgage from an agent who showed us a foreclosure notice from the bank due to the company falling behind in their payments. Suddenly, we were faced with the truth that the bank is the legal owner of the apartment until the mortgage is paid in full. Due to the company having serious financial difficulties, we have been on an emotional roller coaster ride because of repeated unfulfilled promises. We have filed a civil law suit that we would like to avoid, but which seems to be the only way to pressure the company to pay off the mortgage. Our sovereign Lord, knowing what was coming, gave us an across-the-hall and an upstairs neighbor who are both lawyers! We seem to remember asking you to pray that we would develop good relationships with our new neighbors! The Sweet: It’s such a unique thing with God that trials and joy are bound together. James tells us to consider it pure joy when difficulties test our faith because they teach us perseverance (James 1:2). Hopefully, we are learning perseverance. There doesn’t seem to be any other alternative! But God has also given us many reasons to rejoice associated with this trial. We’d like to share some of the “joys” that have strengthened and sustained us in the last three months. • Realizing that God does not condemn us, even though we made some errors in decision-making when we bought the apartment. • Picking up the Bible throughout the day and experiencing God’s Word speaking directly to our hearts. • Victory over negative thoughts as we struggle to bring them to Christ and let Him renew our minds. • Forgiving those who have wronged us, and seeing God open doors for us to speak to them and let them know we are praying for them. God arranged two unexpected encounters between us and the construction company president and his representative. • Being prayed for and ministered to by our Dominican church family. Our relationships with the church leadership and within our weekly small group are deepening. • Receiving notice of your prayers for us and your encouraging comments via email. • Drawing closer to each other in our marriage as we both draw closer to the Lord. We have resisted blaming each other for the problem, and spend a lot more time praying together. • Experiencing God’s strength to keep up with ministry and discipleship opportunities. o God enabled us to finish a challenging and insightful New Testament survey course in the leadership training classes. We praise the LORD that more than 50 students continue to persevere. o Bob also continues to mentor Stanley and preach on Galatians in the Haitian church at Los Girasoles. o We helped to plan and participated in a women’s retreat for 56 women in June. (Yes, Bob was there, too!) o Following the retreat, we’ve had many meetings to help resolve some major conflicts in the women’s ministry leadership team. God has faithfully begun to heal relationships there. Although we don’t yet know the final outcome, we received good news on July 19 that the company has caught up on the monthly payments and paid off 1/3 of the total mortgage! Please keep praying. We would like the mortgage issue to be resolved by mid-August because we have tickets to fly to the states on August 18. We hope to spend 5 months in home ministry to visit many of you and share in detail what God is doing here. Lord willing, we will be in Virginia through November.